Apple iWork 09 9.0.4 Update – Adds ePub Support

While I’ve recommended Apple’s productivity suite, iWork to to plenty of people doing family newsletters or related documents, I normally don’t mention it here except in passing, but iWork 09 9.0.4 fixes some issues in all three apps – Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, including with tables.

More importantly the word processing app, Pages, now has the ability to export to the standard ePub file format. This is a very big deal as you can now export your documents and newsletters to a format that can be read across a lot of mobile platforms, including iBooks on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, Barnes and Noble’s nook, Sony’s Reader, plus Google’s Android platform.

Changes:
Keynote 5.0.4
* Addresses an issue when printing handouts with rule lines.
* Fixes an issue with the slide switcher.
* Resolves an issue when automatically resizing some images while changing slide size.
* Fixes an issue with tables.

Pages 4.0.4
* Fixes an issue with tables.
* Includes compatibility with the standard ePub file format (for use with iBooks) when exporting.

Numbers 2.0.4
* Fixes an issue with tables.

This is the official support article: Support.Apple.com/kb/HT4165.

If you already have it installed, check your Software Update – it showed up on mine this morning.

If you don’t have it, but are interested, you can pick up a free trial (30 days) from the iWork trial downloads.

It can be purchased through there for $79, however it’s on sale through a retailer on Amazon.com for $49.

Software Deals at Amazon

Got an email pointing to some software deals at Amazon.com that maybe of interesting to some Mac genealogists.

Note that these prices are subject to change, since some of them are through third parties.

* Mac Box Set (with Snow Leopard) $95 (normally $169.00) Comes with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, iLife 09, and iWork 09

* Apple iWork ’09 $46.72 (normally $79)

* Mobileme Individual Box $65.02 (normally $99)

* Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 [Mac] $77.40 / $57.40 after Rebate (normally $99.99)

iPhoto ’09 – Overview

I have to say, I’m very impressed with iPhoto ’09.

“Faces” has been added to iPhoto as a way to organize and tag your photos. Once you’ve started assigning names to photos, it automatically “recognizes” photos with those other people, and labels them accordingly. Facial recognition is something I’ve seen in other software, but to see it added into iLife/iPhoto is nice.

When you have a new photo or an unidentified photo, it pops up a “corkboard” that shows the faces for people you’ve already named and suggests matches for the new/unidentified photo.

“Places” has also been added as a way to organize and tag your photos. While they emphasized the geotag aspects (GPS coordinates added to a photo’s EXIF information by your camera), it’s also handy to manually do it, and it plots out your photos on maps.

They’ve also added a “Travel Books” feature where you can have books printed out with maps and photos of the places you visited or are interested.

Both of these features could end up being very useful to genealogists in the long run. I have my doubts about how accurate the facial recognition will be when it comes to older or smaller photos, but even if you have to do some manually, it seems like a good way to keep track of everything.

MemoryMiner 1.0.6

GroupSmarts, LLC has released MemoryMiner 1.0.6. MemoryMiner is a Mac OS X appliaction (Mac OS X 10.4.3+/Universal Binary) that allows you to use photos as “individual frames in a type of endless story board. The story elements are linked to each other by way of annotation layers identifying the people, places, dates and events captured in each frame. As links are made, it becomes easy and tremendously interesting to explore the threads which link people’s lives across time, place and shared experience.”

The only change in 1.0.6 was to “Adjust map downloading code to keep up with changes in the Mapquest web site.”

MemoryMiner 1.0.5

MemoryMiner 1.0.5 has been released by GroupSmarts, LLC. It’s a Mac OS X appliaction (Mac OS X 10.4.3+/Universal Binary) that allows you to use photos as “individual frames in a type of endless story board. The story elements are linked to each other by way of annotation layers identifying the people, places, dates and events captured in each frame. As links are made, it becomes easy and tremendously interesting to explore the threads which link people’s lives across time, place and shared experience.”

Changes: (via MacUpdate.com)
* Adds some enhancements.
* Corrects some problems with the XML Export.
* Has a newer Flash skin with support for displaying attached files and URLs.

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